The Hard Life
by anaralii
Summary: Anna is finally getting away from her horrible stepmother and going to Hogwarts after 2 years of home schooling, but she's having some trouble choosing friends. Will it be the Golden Trio and other Gryffindors, or the beautiful Malfoy and his goons?


Chapter 1: A Meager Breakfast, and Good News

The morning sun peered through the wings of the fluttering fairies as they danced through the rays of light and dew encrusted leaves of the massive willow tree. The sweet melody of the lark rang through the sweet silence of the morning. Anna stared up at her ceiling, savoring that beautiful stillness, until the shrill shriek of her stepmother, Melinda, penetrated that blessed silence.

"Come down, you lazy parasite! All you do is sleep all day and feed off of other's happiness! You are as bad as a dementor."

"How could _she _know what a dementor feels like?" Anna mumbled as she stepped out of her warm bed with bare feet onto the chilly floorboards of her small room in the attic.

"Anna!" Melinda called up to her again, dragging the name out. She felt something vibrate beneath her feet, accompanied by three loud bangs,

"I'm coming!" Anna called down, then added, "My wicked stepmother," under her breath.

Anna threw on a dirty, sun-bleached, blue dress, and added a stained white apron. She then bounded down the stairs, hunched over so she wouldn't knock her head on the slanted ceiling.

"So Anna, or should I say Quasi Moto, you've decided to join us at last. Two more hours of gardening for your tardiness with suffice, don't you think Gregory?" Melinda murmured, her voice full of scorn. Gregory, Anna's father, just kept on reading the _Daily Prophet, _occasionally stirring his bowl of rolled oats absentmindedly.

Mmmhmm." He intoned quietly. Anna just closed her eyes for a moment and sighed as quietly as she could so Melinda wouldn't hear her. She often thought her father was under one of the illegal spells making him do anything his new wife told him to do.

"Yes stepmother, it sounds right." She said humbly, then sat down in the corner on a hard, wooden, straight-backed chair where she ate every meal.

"Danki!" the woman shrieked, which was, of course, what she was best at doing. After a moment a small, shaking house elf with big floppy ears, and big, round, brown eyes stepped into the dimly-lit dining room.

"Y-yes M-m-mistress Quigley?" the house elf managed to squeak out. Melinda looked at the creature with a loathsome glare, another thing she had mastered.

"Fetch Anna's breakfast." She told him firmly. The house elf nodded, and scurried out with another squeak.

Anna was extremely surprised at this. Usually she was sent to fetch her own breakfast, which was all the best, because Danki tended to serve her more than she, or five other people, could eat in one day. Melinda would then shout at her for being wasteful, and she would get extra work, calling her ungrateful. She would go on long tangents about how hard her father worked each day, and that she should appreciate what she has more.

Danki reentered the large dinging room with a small plate that consisted of one sunny-side up egg, one slice of bacon and a piece of lettuce. Melinda nodded at Anna's surprise with a smirk on her bony, pale face, then went on to eating her own plate.

Danki walked silently to Anna's seat in the corner and handed her the small plate. Danki bowed to Anna, Melinda, and then to Gregory and hurried out of the room, his ears flopping behind him.

"Hurry, Hurry Anna. The garden won't de-gnome itself, you know." Melinda said quietly.

"You know technically…" but Anna couldn't finish her thought because she was physically thrown out into the yard with a plastic bucket thrown out after her.

"Well, that could have gone a lot worse than it did." Anna said, dusting herself off and getting to her feet. She wandered into the garden with no real hurry. Afterall, Melinda already called her lazy.

As she reached the large field of wolfsbane, she scowled unconsciously, thinking of how this disgusting filth was planted over her mother's moonstone collection. Anna had managed to pilfer most of the stones away undetected from her stepmother, but one day Danki was forced to be an insufferable nark, and that was the end of the moonstones. Melinda, who was a master at potions, put them into a peace draught. Anna looked back on that day many times. She always shuddered when she remembered Melinda telling her that she might be too heavy handed , causing it to be a little _too _potent. She then would cackle and said that if that happened, she would force it down Anna's throat causing her to be put into a deep and irreversible sleep.

Anna shoved the thought out of her mind, and tridged on to the willow tree to rid it of the bowtruckles which inhabited it, so her evil stepmother could chop it down and sell it to Mr. Ollivander for his wand making.

She hated to see it go. She used to climb it when her parents came out on a sunny afternoon to have a picnic. She again shoved the thoughts out of her mind so she could concentrate on the task ahead of her before Melinda would come out and catch her day dreaming.

She scrambled up the tree in her bare feet, got in a comfortable position, then swung down with her legs wrapped around the large branch—to retrieve her basket currently residing on the dirt ground—like an acrobat. She grabbed the basket easily and swung herself back up again and set the basket beside her in the branch. She got somfortable again and tied her hair back to keep it out of her face,

She worked for quite some time, reciting Slinkhard's new book of magical creatures that she had pilfered from her father's newest book purchase.

"Head and torso of a man," followed with a grunt from a pinch of the bowtruckle, then "joined with the palmino body of a horse." then another grunt, "Centaurs have unraveled the mysteries of star formations, planets and galaxies over centuries."

She worked to the squeals of the inhabitants of her beloved willow tree and winced at each one. A few moments later she started again, "Centaurs watch the skies for great tides of evil or changes that are sometimes marked there," followed by yet another grunt. She popped her finger in her mouth to baby it, and closed her eyes wincing at the pain.

"It may take ten years to be exactly sure of what they've seen you know," a masculine voice spoke up to her.

She knew that voice. Every night for two years after her mother died from a Death Eater attack, that voice would sing her songs, read her favorite stories from far away lands just to get her asleep.

Anna jumped into her father's open arms, "Daddy." She breathed into his shoulder taking in that oh so familiar scent.

"I've missed talking to you everyday, my darling daughter." He told her calmly.

"I've missed talking to you as well Daddy," she said again into his shoulder.

"I've also been missing my books," he said with a big grin on his face. Anna pulled away from his embrace, blushed and looked down at her feet to try and think of an excuse.

"Forgive me daddy. I've just been a little…" but she couldn't think of the word to describe. Her father was just smiling at her.

"Shhhh," he said understandingly. "You'll need them. I've talked to Melinda, and she's said that she wouldn't mind if you left to go to Hogwarts this year. Isn't that exciting?" he exclaimed. Anna was overwrought with emotion. For the past two years she had been homeschooled by her father when he wasn't at the Ministry. Gregory Quigley was the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and was a very busy man, but he always made time for his little Anna.

"Dad! Seriously? I'm going to be away from that…for a whole year?" She said, more to herself than her father. He just nodded in excitement for his daughter's sheer joy.

"I'll have friends, and even teachers! Not that you aren't completely wonderful, of course Daddy, but it's not the same as having teachers. They won't just give me an O for being who I am! I might even get an A once or twice." Her father looked sternly at her. Just because you have real teachers and friends, does _not_ mean they should get in the way of your studies, do I make myself clear?" he told her looking her straight in the eyes.

"Oh, of course daddy! I promise, only O's and _maybe_ and E on occasion." Anna said, nodding in excitement.

"That's my girl! Now, I put your booklist on your—in your room. We'll go fetch your supplies tomorrow. We'll make it a date. Just you and me. We'll stay at the Leaky Cauldron and get your supplies during the day, then we'll just bask in the freedom!" he said with his arms stretched out.

"Oh, daddy! This is wonderful! Thank you!" she said and jumped into his arms once more.

"Now Anna, you need to be on your best behavior until you leave for school, or Melinda might change her mind and have you stay. I know you two don't get along very well, but I love the two of you so much, and I hate to see you fight, so will you try? Will you do it for me?" he asked hopefully.

"I'll try if she does." Anna replied sullenly. "Good girl. I knew you would at least try." He said with an enormous grin, then with a small pop, he vanished leaving Anna alone with a basket of bowtruckles and a great willow tree.


End file.
